The present invention relates to an electrical connector.
An example of a conventional connector is shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 of this specification. This is a male connector in which a plurality of male terminal fittings protrude from an inner end face of a hood formed within a housing, a female connector being fitted into this hood. Since long and wide male terminal fittings 101L and narrow and short male terminal fittings 101S are mixed within a single hood 102, this connector is termed a hybrid.
When this connector 100 is to be fitted with a female connector 105, the long male terminal fittings 101L are first engaged with female terminal fittings (not shown) then the short male terminal fittings 101S are engaged with female terminal fittings. Since two differing sets of terminal fittings are fitted together, there is a time lapse between the onset of fitting resistance of the long and short terminal fittings 101L and 101S. As a result, if the long terminal fittings 101L are provided on either a left or a right side (relative to the fitting direction of the hood 102), when fitting commences either a left or right edge (whichever edge does not receive fitting resistance) of the female connector 105 will protrude more deeply, in an inclined manner, into the interior of the hood 102, thereby impeding the fitting operation.
In order to deal with this problem, a configuration has been employed whereby the long male terminal fittings 101L are provided as a group in a central location relative to the up-down and left-right directions (relative to the fitting direction of the hood 102), and the short male terminal fittings 101S are provided around these centrally located long male terminal fittings 101L (see FIG. 4). Alternatively, the short male terminal fittings 101S are provided in the central location, and the long male terminal fittings 101L are provided therearound (not shown).
However, the female connector 105 may be inserted in an inclined manner into the hood 102, not due to fitting resistance, but because the operator inserts the female connector 105 in a misaligned manner. As a result, in order to prevent the female connector 105 and the male terminal fittings 101L and 101S from interfering with one another, it is necessary to extend the length B of the hood 102 so that an open end 102A of this hood 102 comes to be located to the anterior of tips of the male terminal fittings 101L and 101S.
In this case, as shown in FIG. 5, if the female connector 105 is fitted in an inclined manner and is in a state whereby it makes contact with the open end 102A of the hood 102 (in the most deeply inserted state), a corner 105A can be located at any position along a semicircle 104 (shown by the broken line in FIG. 5) along the open end 102A of the hood 102. That is, the deepest insertion depth of the corner 105A corresponds to the centre of the open side of the hood 102 (the central location in the up-down direction of FIG. 5).
In order to prevent interference between the female connector 105 and the male terminal fittings 101L and 101S whilst simultaneously keeping the extending length B of the hood 102 short, the short male terminal fittings 101S should be provided in the central location and the long male terminal fittings 101L should be provided therearound (in the up-down direction of FIG. 5). This configuration is not shown. By providing the two male terminal fittings 101S and 101L of differing lengths in this manner, the female connector 105 will not incline due to the existence of a time lapse between the onset of the fitting resistance of the male terminal fittings 101S and 101L.
However, in the case where there are many more long male terminal fittings 101L than short male terminals fittings 101S, or when there are few long male terminal fittings 101L but they must be provided in the central location (as shown in FIG. 4), the extending length B of the hood 102 must be made relatively long in order to prevent the long male terminal fittings 101L from interfering with the corner 105A of the female connector 105.
The present invention has taken the above problem into consideration, and aims to prevent a female connector that has been inserted in an inclined manner from interfering with male terminal fittings within a connector having long male terminal fittings provided in a central location within a hood that extends for as short a length as possible.
According to the invention there is provided an electrical connector having a body, long and short terminal fittings protruding from said body in a fitting direction, and a hood surrounding said terminal fittings, the long terminal fittings being provided centrally in a group, and the short terminal fittings substantially surrounding the long terminal fittings, characterised in that a substantially tubular member extends around and projects beyond at least some of said long terminal fittings, said tubular member projecting in the same direction as said hood, and being adapted to prevent contact between a mating connector and said long terminal fittings.
Such a tubular member protects the long terminal fittings against contact damage due to incorrect assembly. The tubular member may be circumferentially incomplete, for example it may have axial slots, whilst still providing the required degree of protection.
Preferably the tubular member is circumferentially complete, and in the preferred embodiment the tubular member surrounds all of the long terminal fittings, and only the long terminal fittings.